And God Spoke

His reflections on some of the ways we might answer these questions in the church today became the twelve short chapters of this book. Here scripture scholar and Anglican priest Christopher Bryan looks at the nature of the Bible’s authority and inspiration and how the Bible can inform our decision-making today. He explores common questions about scripture, such as: What do we mean when we say that the scriptures are revelatory, that they are inspired, that they are the Word of God? How do we define the Bible’s authority for the past and the future? What does a church that takes the Bible’s authority seriously actually look like? How does it read, study, and pray with the Bible? And God Spoke offers essential guidelines for everyone who wonders about the authority of the Bible, and who wants to read it with attentiveness and understanding.

This is a well written, carefully reasoned presentation which will be helpful to both clergy and laity who struggle with how to interpret what they read in the scriptures in the face of the factions, sectarian and divisive, which claim an absolute authority of interpretation, usually their own., Bryan’s lucid handling of subjects like canon, inspiration, and interpretation rests on masterful scholarship not flaunted in footnotes or marked with pretense., There are at least a thousand great quotations in this book., An excellent book for a class on the authority of the Bible. Can one even imagine a book on the authority and inspiration of the Bible that could be understood in simple language and Anglican too?! Well, this is it! This book has ‘soul.', This is a brief but first-rate work of biblical theology for ordinary intelligent folks who hear a lector say, ‘The Word of the Lord’ after Sunday’s readings, but have said, ‘Thanks be to God’ with little curiosity until now.

CHRISTOPHER BRYAN is the C. K. Benedict Professor of New Testament at the School of Theology at the University of the South, and the editor of the Sewanee Theological Review. He is the author of a commentary on the letter to the Romans and an introduction to the gospel of Mark.